The Good

Advanced Express Web Application Development covers an impressive amount of ground. It offers a great look at the process of building a non-trivial single-page web application with Express. After covering basic setup, the book progresses quickly through testing, automation, building a web API, MongoDB, logging, building the client-side Backbone application, real-time communication with offline support using Socket.IO and Redis, authentication and security, acceptance testing, performance, scalability and best-practices.

The Bad

I would have really liked to see more context. Advanced Express Web Application Development is like an instruction manual that provides step-by-step directions towards a goal but doesn’t explain the decision-making process, what the alternatives are and what pitfalls you might run into.

The Verdict

If you’re specifically looking to use Express in building a scalable end-to-end JavaScript web application, Advanced Express Web Application Development will give you a good place to start. While it’s focus on Express and lack of explanations of the “why’s” will prevent it from becoming your full-stack JavaScript web application development bible, it does cover a number of more advanced web application issues that are not mentioned in your average JavaScript book.